STONEDUST

The hottest gossip topic in Newbury, that Shangri-la of pastoral Connecticut, isn't the spicy sleep-over party Duane and Michelle Fisk and their Jacuzzi planned for three other swinging couples after the lesser guests went home at 9 p.m.; it's the discovery the next morning of Duane's best buddy, Reg Hopkins, dead of a heroin overdose, demurely sitting inside his Blazer in the middle of a distant covered bridge. Pressed to investigate by Janey Hopkins, distraught that she's been widowed before she and her lawyer-lover could finish divorcing Reg, insider-trader- turned-realtor Ben Abbott (HardScape, 1994) wonders if Reg, who had a long history of party-crashing, could have been the extra guest seen ducking out of the Fisks' in the dead of night; if he could have died to protect some dirty secret about land development or the impending town election; and even if it was really heroin that killed him. With ideas like these, it's no wonder that Ben soon leaves his fickle client in the dust, finds a pair of uninvited Waterbury low-lifes climbing his stairs after he's retired, and (yes) digs up a surprise witness who can place Reg at that fatal party. But then the real work begins: Which one of the beautiful guests inveigled all the others into covering up a murder? Conscientious, overgalvanized adventures among the Junior League set. Pleasant but ultimately exhausting, like a three-day weekend of tag sales. (Author tour)